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Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

6 replies [Last post]
Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:17
Anonymous

Another card game I recently completed:

Election! (scroll down to the Feb 26th entry)

It's a fun, quick game that pokes fun at the circus which occurs during political campaigning. I'm a Democrat, but I tried not to make it partisan, poking fun at the things all politicians (and the media) do.

Let me know your thoughts. Is it complex enough? I wonder if it needs more of an element of strategy (right now you just draw and play cards that help you or hurt others).

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:37
#1
phpbbadmin
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Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

Perhaps these game ideas would be better developed as journal entries?

-Darke

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:39
#2
Anonymous
Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

Oh! :o Sorry, still new around here. I saw the Journals link on the left when I read your post. I'll have to look into those and post my stuff there. Thanks.

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:41
#3
Scurra
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Joined: 09/11/2008
Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

The concept is nice, but it needs an actual game attached ;-) What you've currently got is a roll-and-move game without the actual board.

What I'd do is add the "Showmanager/Atlantic Star" mechanic. If you haven't seen this, what you do is lay out four cards in a row. You can take the left-most card for free, or buy one of the others at an increasing cost. When you take a card, all the ones behind it are moved leftwards and a new one added to the end of the line. You may also choose to pay money to discard all the cards and replace them. This concentrates the mind as you have to decide whether to take a free card, or spend some of your hard-earned money on a potentially better one.

However, this won't do much for your game unless you can make the cards more differentiated. For instance, give them different colours/symbols and then make the penalties/bonuses proportional to the number of the same colour/symbol that end up in front of you. That may encourage players to buy more expensive cards since they want to extend their own sets, or perhaps to extend opponents' penalty sets (or even to pre-empt someone doing it to them!)

(I think you've captured the essential meta-feel of election campaigning however; even if it has a US-feel, all the events have echoes that work across borders. Plus I'm a big fan of The West Wing, and quite a bit of your game has cropped up in the current "primaries campaign" story-line - apart, perhaps from the chicken costumes... :-)

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 13:52
#4
Anonymous
Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

Wow! At 249 words, I think you have written the most brief ruleset I have ever seen!

Great job on the variety of the cards. I think your flavor text does well in keeping the game non-partisan.

A few note on my brief reading of the rules and the cards. You mention money on the cards, but nowhere in the rules. Does the game also come with money? How much do players get to start the game?

Spelling error: On the first Bribery card, you have "No" when you should have "Now".

I also see that a die is necessary, you could remove the die rolling for the cards that require it, and make the bonuses based on another (more controllable) game condition. For example, player gets $5,000 for every ___ card in front of them, etc.

One thing that I will strenuously suggest you change is the treatment of ties. I wouldn't want to play a game and then have a tie decided by the roll of the die. You have plenty of other game states that could determine tiebreakers (cards in hand, cash leftover, fewer number of negative votes, etc.).

I will add that the system of your game seems a little light, in that it is basically a draw one, play one system. That's not a bad thing, but have you considered adding a little more mechanical variety? Maybe making some cards dependent on melding a number of cards to play them, etc. Just something to think about.

Thanks for sharing your game!

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 14:07
#5
Anonymous
Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

Yeah, I was impressed with how short the rules were too. I have a more complex game I'm working on as well and I finally condensed it down from four full pages to three full pages of text/rules, but that's still a lot!

I should probably make a note on money in the rules. I thought about a separate stack of "cash" a la Monopoly, but I ended up just putting in various cards in the deck which have a cash value (Donation, etc.)

I want to keep this a simple, fast game like Pit if you've played that. But it does need more complexity. I like the idea of making point values based on their relationship to other cards. I do have a card that has a value based on the number of "campaign stops" (another card in the deck) you have made. More dependencies of that nature could increase the strategy.

Scurra, I like the suggestion of giving players the option to buy a card, or something that makes them choose. "Do I 'spend' XX to get benefit A or benefit B (get an extra card or get extra points/votes, etc.)"

I'm hoping to playtest soon and I'll give you an update when I do. I'll check out the journals though as Darkehorse suggested. Is it recommended to have an ongoing thread about a particular game in a journal, and leave the forums for more general discussion?

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Tue, 03/01/2005 - 14:19
#6
Anonymous
Election - simple card game poking fun at politics

You can use the journals for ongoing discussion about your game (progress, development, playtesting, etc.).

Another option is to sign up for a slot in the Game Design Workshop. It's a club like atmosphere whereby you read and comment on others' games and they do the same when you submit yours (link to GDW protocols). You get a full week with your game in the spotlight and typically generate a lot of feedback. You have to comment on 2 or more games submitted by others before you turn, but it's very worth your while. Since these games are still in rough stages, you could gain a lot of input from submitting one.

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